Spending on social media exceeds that of email marketing

The enthusiasm of the travel sector for digital marketing will continue despite the difficult market conditions. This is the main conclusion drawn from the study on the travel industry on the Internet (2017 Online Travel Report) prepared by bigmouthmedia based on the responses provided by 78 leading professionals in the travel sector of the bigmouthmedia and LBi customer database, and the readers of Tnooz.

While the travel sector continues to be among the most affected by the events of 2010, the study by bigmouthmedia shows that enthusiasm for social media and mobile channels will persist, with social strategies that, for the first time, monopolize more budget than email marketing. In addition, the study shows that interest in smartphones or smartphones will continue and that 28% will invest in the development of applications while 22% will do so in the deployment of mobile-friendly sites over the next year.

“The industry has been forced to face a variety of challenges this year from the eruption of volcanoes to the problems the economy has gone through, but the study shows that for the travel sector these setbacks only appear to be ‘ fueled ‘the enthusiasm of companies for digital marketing, in general, and social media, in particular. Bearing in mind that transparency and accountability are gaining increasing prominence in budgets, the fact that any digital action can be measured quickly makes it the dominant channel, “says Anneli Ritari, senior strategist in the travel sector at bigmouthmedia.

According to the study, the weight of the digital area within marketing budgets seems to continue to grow, going from 56% in 2017 to 60% in 2018. Likewise, the study reveals that 85% of companies plan to increase their spending on In the coming months, and although most of them intend to do so through direct investment, 33% declared that they will transfer funds from other traditional channels.

As expected, online travel agents (Online Travel Agents -OTAs in its acronym in English) and search comparison engines devote a large percentage (90%) of their budget to online marketing, while airlines and hotels they are the ones that allocate less resources to this heading, around 30% in 2017. However, for the next year this figure seems to grow up to 33% in the case of airlines, to 38% in the case of hotels and up to 45% for tour operators. The explanation can be found in the fact that the ROI is increased up to 80% for travel companies and that many companies indicate that much of this effort will improve this measure in 2018. In fact,

Ritari adds that “although the adoption of digital marketing techniques by the travel sector continues to improve, the industry can still learn from other sectors. Examples of large viral video or social media campaigns are still scarce, perhaps because as an industry, we tend to focus too much on the Return on Investment (ROI) and, as a general rule, we lack the creative talent we see in the companies of entertainment and retail. “